But she survived as the plane landed at Newark Airport on Friday, Dec. 11 and she made it back to her Linden Lane home in time to spend the Christmas holidays with her parents, Steve and Nancy, and sisters, Kate and Libby. [break]
By Christmas, Doyne said she had pretty much recovered from the illness and was ready to return to the Kopila Valley Children’s Home, an orphanage she started in Surkhet, Nepal, in 2007. It was also a time to go back to the country where a longtime violent uprising by Maoist revolutionaries has once again flared up.
It was just all in day’s work, so to speak, for the 23-year-old Mendham High School graduate.
Rather than go to college, after high school Doyne worked at non-profit programs abroad that brought her in contact with Nepalese refugees. Hearing of the plight of orphan children in the land of the Himalayas, Doyne bought land and built an orphanage about three miles from the Indian border.
She has helped to provide shelter to 24 kids at the orphanage, sent 60 others to school, and assisted in the placement of more than 700 orphans in the region.
Her next goal is to buy land and build a school for children living in the impoverished nation. She plans to fund the school with $100,000 she won in last year’s national “Do Something” awards contest.
On returning home for the holidays, Doyne said she had lost weight from her petite frame in past months as she and the orphans and others in the village eat largely what they can grow in a community garden. But she hoped to regain some girth and health with holiday home-cooking before venturing back to Nepal.
The vacation included quality family time but also time to meet with community groups to keep up interest and support for her work. Among her stops, on Sunday, Dec. ``13, she spoke with the congregation at the Skylands Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Hackettstown.
After her brief vacation home, Doyne said she was eager to return to Nepal, although she was concerned with reports of increasing violence in the capital city of Katmandu, just 18 miles away from the orphanage.
Maoist sympathizers took to the streets on Sunday, Dec. 20, for the largest protests since the Maoists abandoned the government seven months ago.
The unrest was a severe test of the peace treaty signed in 2006 when Maoists gave up a 10-year armed revolt and joined the political process, according to published reports.
Packed Schools
The schools in Nepal are overcrowded, often with 50 or more children in a class. Teachers are inexperienced, and there aren’t enough books, pencils and paper, let alone computers.
Teaching is by and large by rote in the best or worst English tradition. Another remnant of British rule that ended in 1947 is that many teachers enforce school rules through corporal punishment.
Doyne wants to change things and make a school that will serve as a model for experiential learning techniques along with an emphasis on the arts.
She plans to begin with a grades K-4 school to open this year for 300 children and to increase a grade a year to the goal of a grades K-8 school.
Teachers are being recruited from the community while more experienced and progressive teachers will be brought in from Katmandu to help train the new teachers.
The location hasn’t been determined but Doyne said she hopes to open within a five to 10 minute walk to the orphanage. The school will serve not only children who live in the orphanage but others who live in the general area.
Doyne said she hopes the $100,000 grant will be enough to pay for the land and building and to cover the costs of books, student uniforms and teachers pay. Sponsors will be sought to pay tuition for children that will cover further costs.
She said the resurging Maoist violence has forced many Nepalese to flee to the safety of the cities. That, in turn, has pushed up the demand for land near the cities and the costs.
For example, Doyne said the land for the orphanage cost $5,000 three years ago and the property is now worth $20,000.
World summit
Doyne also brought her experiences to a world conference held in Rotterdam Nov. 20-22. She was invited to speak at the European Summit for Global Transformation after someone read about her work on her website, www.blinknow.org.
About 50 countries were represented and Doyne spoke about the orphanage and how groups and individuals can make lasting changes on the ground.
Other speakers talked about issues ranging from the environment to medical challenges in third world nations.
Artists, educators, non-profit directors, corporate executives and employees attended from the U.S., Bahrain, Latvia, Nepal, Rwanda, the Netherlands, Texas, Uganda, New York, Belgium, the UK, Germany, Sweden, and more.
(First published in Observer-Tribune on Jan 8, 2010, New Jersey, USA)
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